New Program Matches NYC Residents With Undocumented Immigrant Families

STATEN ISLAND, NY — In an effort to help undocumented immigrants navigate life under President Donald Trump’s draconian immigration policies, La Colmena, a community-based organization in Staten Island that assists immigrant workers, has launched a new program that matches undocumented immigrant families with NYC residents.

So far, around 30 Staten Island residents are involved, according to an Associated Press video report.

In recent weeks, the hosts been meeting with "matched" Latino families who live nearby, in an attempt to discover the best ways to help them — whether that be accompanying them to hospital visits or, in the worst case scenario, giving their kids a place to stay if the parents are detained or deported.

“I am very disturbed by the idea of people thinking that it’s okay to take families apart,” Ruth Silverberg, a Staten Island resident and program participant, told the AP.

Below, watch Silverberg's family meet and make dinner with the Torres family:

The La Colmena organization is based in Staten Island — the city's most conservative borough, and the only one where the majority of residents voted for Trump in November.

The idea for the new program reportedly came from a group of Staten Island residents who approached the organization to offer their help protecting unauthorized immigrants, at a time when discrimination and xenophobia are on the rise throughout NYC and the nation.

To kick off the program, residents and immigrants of Staten Island were divided into five groups, depending on where they live, according to reports. Language programs were then organized to help them become acquainted with one another.

Photo by Simone Wilson/Patch